The Scottish Computer Assisted Assessment Network

The Scottish Computer Assisted Assessment Network (SCAAN) [1] was set up in early 1999 to promote the use of online assessment in higher education institutions throughout Scotland. Funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council under its Webtools initiative, SCAAN is a collaboration between three universities: Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde. Each of these establishments is implementing a particular computer-based assessment tool. Glasgow uses TRIADS, an Authorware-based multimedia assessment engine, built at the University of Derby. Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde have their own webbased assessment engines. It was decided that the dissemination and evaluation of three separate engines would be likely to result in generic deliverables, more useful to the higher education community than the promotion and analysis of a single engine. This paper discusses the project in general and focuses in particular on the deliverables produced to date. These are: • a requirements analysis of a generic (not engine-dependent) online assessment engine, specifying the required functions; • a technical issues report which enables potential users to compare the engines and make informed decisions on the choice of engine; • and a Document Type Definition (DTD) for a generic assessment containing core question types, taking into account the recent release of the Instructional Management Systems (IMS) specification for assessment, with the ultimate aim that all engines can be built in an extensible and interoperable manner.